"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
“Given the BIA’s repeated reliance on A-B-, briefing on the effect of A-B-’s overruling is necessary. We remand to the BIA to reconsider Corea’s asylum claim in the first instance, this time under pre-A-B- caselaw.”
Bring in progressive immigration experts at the BIA and the Immigration Courts;
Generate long-overdue positive precedents on granting asylum to those persecuted by domestic violence and other forms of gender-based persecution.
Consequently, these remands (of many cases that should have been granted years ago) are likely to be yet another “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” disaster. The BIA was “all over the place” on A-R-C-G- domestic violence cases even prior to Session’s racist, misogynistic, intellectually dishonest atrocity in A-B-. Without a better qualified, courageous, expert BIA committed to due process and positive precedents on how to efficiently recognize and grant “gender-based” asylum cases, the backlog-building, due-process-denying, equal-justice-eroding deadly farce known as “refugee roulette” @ EOIR will continue!🤮☠️
Tell Garland you’ve had (more than) enough. Fix EOIR with real progressive judges and competent judicial (not bureaucratic) administrators! 🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!
Thomas Cizauskas Crimes against humanity Creative Commons License — The Biden Administration promised to stop these crimes committed by our Government, but hasn’t.
Those were the words I heard from an immigration officer not long after I entered the United States near El Paso, Texas in May 2018. I thought I had just reached safety with Angie, my 7-year-old daughter. I was wrong.
Once we arrived at the border, immigration officers processed me and my daughter at a detention facility, and led us to a crowded cell packed with 50 to 60 other families. It smelled terrible—like urine—and everything was gray. We were so cold. They didn’t even offer us one of the cellophane blankets you see on TV. I had to take my shirt off to wrap it around Angie and keep her warm. I was shivering.
The journey to this point had been excruciatingly painful. Fearing for our lives, we had to make the decision to flee. I had a good life in Honduras. I was a businessman and I owned my own home. I knew it would be hard to leave everything I worked so hard to build behind. Starting a new life in a new country with a different culture wouldn’t be easy. But desperate circumstances called for desperate measures. Hope of reaching a safe place for my family kept me going.
At the detention center, many fathers began hearing rumors that immigration officials were going to take our children away from us. Take them where? Take my daughter? To another cell? A new facility? On the inside I was panicking, but I knew I needed to show strength for my daughter. I needed to be brave and prepare her if the rumors were true. You will contact your grandparents in Ohio, I told Angie.
In the cell, we practiced memorizing their phone numbers, repeating them over and over. To be extra safe, I then wrote the numbers with a ball-point pen on my daughter’s arm, her belly, her foot and on the inside of her jeans hoping she’d have the chance to make a phone call before immigration officials washed off the ink.
Then my nightmare happened. They came to take our children. I witnessed pain, agonizing cries and a deep sense of helplessness. Some of the immigration officers joked as they handcuffed the parents. Others expressed a cruelty I never would have expected. Rather than trying to ease our pain, they were somehow enjoying their power. As if they believed their actions were the right thing to do. I don’t know how anyone believes separating a child from a parent is right.
. . . .
While being transferred to a detention facility for children, an immigration officer sexually abused her. When she fought back, the officer threatened her, saying if she told anyone she would never see her parents again. Then Angie witnessed the same officer sexually abuse two girls who were even younger than her. Angie stayed quiet about the experience even months after we were reunited.
We were reunited after several weeks, though the separation felt eternal. The Angie the U.S. government returned to me is not the same girl they took out of my arms in that detention center. She cannot forget what happened to her. And she wants me to share what happened to her because she is worried the officer who abused her is still an immigration official. We do not know the officer’s name—let alone whether the officer is still working in government.
“What if that officer is still hurting other kids?” Angie asked me.
As a father I want to tell Angie not to worry. That is why I am asking President Joe Biden to act. Reuniting families and making sure they have immigration status in the U.S. is critical—but it is not enough. The government can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of asylum seekers who are being turned away at the border right now. All asylum seekers should be allowed to seek protection and refuge in the U.S. without fear.
The government must also investigate every allegation of sexual abuse and mistreatment by immigration officers. Those officers must immediately be identified and removed from their positions so they cannot hurt anyone else. President Biden, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice together have the ability to ensure that families like mine can begin to heal.
It is hell to leave your home and risk everything so your child can be safe. It shouldn’t be hell once you have reached what you thought would be a safe haven.
After entering the United States to seek safety, Daniel Paz and his daughter were separated for several weeks. Paz and his family were reunited in 2018 and have since won asylum. He is a committed advocate for other families who have faced similar trauma.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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Who would have thought that nearly six months into the Biden Administration our Government would still be abusing asylum seekers and ignoring the Constitution, mocking the rule of law, and degrading humanity?
So, how is it that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke intend to combat racism and unequal justice in America when they have failed to re-establish the rule of law for asylum seekers at the border and continue to run an unjust and grossly mismanaged “court system” @ EOIR filled with too many “Miller Lite” judges?
Tell the Biden Administration and Judge Garland that we need progressive reforms, now! EOIR would be a great starting place!
In the strangely disingenuous world of Judge Garland’s DOJ:
This is unacceptable treatment of convicted felons:
Death Penalty By Dave Granlund Reprinted by license
But, this is “A-OK” treatment of those seeking asylum @ EOIR:
“Justice” Star Chamber Style
Pausing the Trump/Barr Federal killing spree makes sense. In addition to Garland’s “due process concerns,” there is the larger problem that the death penalty is unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment.
One would think that AG Garland’s concern for due process would extend to individuals being railroaded through his broken, biased, dysfunctional, due-process-denying Immigration “Courts” (that aren’t courts at all) who often face removal to places where they face abuse, torture, and/or death. Heck, at the border they are illegally removed without any process at all, as Judge Garland and his lieutenants look the other way. They might pretend not to see what’s happening. But, we see it!
Apparently, in Garland’s system due process is only a requirement for convicted felons, not for vulnerable individuals fighting for their lives in a process intentionally skewed against them. His is a system staffed largely with “Miller-Lite judges” selected by his two immediate predecessors who prided themselves on creating a “due process free zone” at EOIR and “partnering” with DHS Enforcement!
In my Georgetown Law Immigration Law & Policy class, we recently talked about the racist roots of naturalization policy set forth in the Naturalization Act of 1790 with my friend and colleague Professor Cori Alonso Yoder.Obviously, the racism of our “Founding Fathers” went well beyond the institution of slavery.
Professor Cori Alonso Yoder PHOTO: Google Scholar
Naturalization was a “whites only” proposition that transcended status as free or enslaved. White foreign nationals who had resided here for two years could be citizens. Free African Americans, Native Americans, and other free people of color could not become U.S. Citizens even if they had been born here and lived here for their entire lives. Yup, you don’t have to think too deeply to recognize the overt racism there!
Not to mention that America was literally built on the backs of enslaved African Americans whose free labor also supported a number of the white Founding Fathers, their white families, their often lavish lifestyles, and their sometimes endemic fiscal irresponsibilities. See, e.g., T. Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence whose estate had to sell off slaves to pay his debts.
No wonder White Supremacists, including many ignorant and dishonest pols, don’t want the truth of our nation’s history taught. The truth isn’t always pretty. And, it often has little to do with the various White Nationalist myths and skewed narratives foisted upon us.
Since those bogus myths exclude or distort the roles of the majority of today’s Americans, the “truth deniers” are going to have a tough time shoving their “whitewashed” version of American history down our throats in the long run! (That’s true, even though the “forces of ignorance, racism, bias, and thought suppression” on the right have been quite active lately and, shamefully, have succeeded in writing some of their racist nonsense into state and local laws). An honest reckoning with our past, including our past mistakes, is necessary for us to move forward into a better future.
One has only to look at Justice Alito’s mythologized version of America set forth in his recent majority opinion suppressing the voting rights of African Americans and other minorities, and to read Justice Kagan’s cogent rebuttal of his legal sophism, to see that “Dred Scott” is still alive at the Supremes! Sad, but true and something we all have to deal with. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/voting-rights-arizona-court/
It’s not the first time our legal system has refused to carry out the clear mandate of the 15th Amendment against attacks by states trying to suppress the political power of their African-American citizens. One would like to think it will be the last. But, that’s unlikely given the current composition of the Supremes, Congress, and many state legislatures.
There might be no immediate solution for the Supremes, Congress, and state legislatures. The political process simply takes time, and the forces of regression have found and exploited all of the “anti-democratic seams” in our institutions that give them political power beyond their numbers.
However, there is one potentially powerful court system out there that progressives could reform and reconstitute NOW into a judiciary committed to due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, and equal justice for all persons in the United States regardless or race, creed, or status. So far, the Biden Administration and AG Garland have been both tone deaf and remarkably inept at transforming the Immigration Courts into the better judiciary needed for our future! Progressives need to “raise hell” until the Biden Administration fixes the one now-dysfunctional Federal Court system that they actually control!
The future will belong to those unafraid to face the sometimes unattractive realities of our collective past, to respect and honor those who fought through the mistreatment and injustice inflicted upon them, and learn from our history rather than denying or rewriting it! It will also belong to those wise, courageous, and bold enough to take advantage of opportunities for improving American justice that are staring them in the face. So far, Dems have shown themselves not up to the job in the Immigration Courts. Until they are, racial justice and sustained progress in America are likely to remain illusions.
Gen. Garland continues to use “Miller Lite Mercenaries” against migrants. “The U.S. constitution states that our judicial system is a ‘separate but equal part’ to our democracy. But immigration courts have nothing to do with that.” — Tea Ivanovic, Immigrant Food Albrecht Dürer, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsDan Kowalski Online Editor of the LexisNexis Immigration Law Community (ILC)
Dan Kowalski reports for LexisNexis Immigration Community:
“[T]he BIA has not addressed the question of the applicability of the color-of-law rule regarding state involvement in torture. … The parties agree that a remand is the best alternative where the BIA has made an unauthorized or inadequately supported factual finding on the likelihood of torture, thereby leaving unresolved whether the IJ failed to apply the rule-of-law theory of state involvement in torture. Accordingly, we conclude that the prudent course is to remand the case to the BIA. … We further order the BIA to remand the case to the IJ for a clear factual finding on the likelihood of torture and for the IJ’s clarification, if necessary, on the question of state involvement in light of the color-of-law rule. … PETITION GRANTED; VACATED AND REMANDED WITH INSTRUCTIONS TO REMAND.”
Congrats to Matthew Nickson! Getting justice for a migrant in the notoriously pro-Government 5th Cir. is no mean feat! Think of how much easier your job would be if AG Garland hired some “real judges” at EOIR — experts in immigration and human rights who have represented individuals in Immigration Court and who are committed to due process and fundamental fairness above all else!
When you’re out to stick it to Hondurans (actually all Northern Triangle migrants), regardless of facts or law, to please your sleazy White Nationalist political bosses in the Trump regime, bad things are going to happen.
Let’s not forget that the Trump regime entered into a totally corrupt and bogus “Safe Third Country” agreement with Honduras, probably one of the least safe countries in the Hemisphere with no functional asylum system at all. Given this level of overt political fraud by the “bosses,” I doubt that the regime would have appreciated BIA bureaucrats correctly finding that torture with government acquiescence is likely in Honduras.
Sure, these failures were before Garland took over. But, he has made little effort to date to either acknowledge and root out the deep corruption and anti-immigrant weaponization of the Immigration Courts or to address the inadequate “go along to get along judging” that was encouraged at EOIR. In plain terms, respondents did not get, and still do not get, qualified, fair, and impartial judges at EOIR to adjudicate their claims.
You have only to look at the comedy of errors and ineptitude at EOIR in this case “outed” by one of the most pro-Government Circuits in America to see the proof! That’s unconstitutional!
Remand after remand to “get it right” also “jacks backlog.” Just getting a case back on an Immigration Judge’s docket takes time and effort in a non-automated system with no e-filing and traditionally overwhelmed and demoralized staff. Instead of fixing “customer service” @ EOIR, the Trump kakistocracy invested in ludicrous, due-process-destroying “IJ Dashboards” to keep the quotas filled and the unconstitutional “nativist deportation railroad” moving. Yet, Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke pretend that none of these constitutional and civil rights absurdities, not to mention grotesque management fraud, waste, and abuse, happened!
Don’t stand for any of Garland’s dishonest “expedited dockets” which implicitly blame those seeking justice under law and their courageous lawyers for the ungodly mess he and his lieutenants inherited but have failed to address! And, “dedicated docket for asylum seekers” is just a euphemism for more backlog-building, due-process denying “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” and continuing mismanagement by Garland.
I’ll bet that qualified experts could cut the largely self-inflicted backlog by at least 50% in 90 days without stomping on anyone’s due process rights merely by administratively closing or terminating without prejudice hundreds of thousands of non-priority aged cases. Many of those could better be handled at USCIS.
It shouldn’t be this difficult to get an Administration that ran and got elected on a “reform” and “return to good government” platform to do the right thing here. But, it is! EOIR needs reform, including a new BIA and competent, expert judges who know asylum law, respect due process, and will treat migrants and their attorneys fairly, respectfully, and humanely. It’s not a “big ask!” So why is it “above Garland’s pay grade?”
“Hey Judge Garland! Why not put some REAL judges who can ‘play this game’ into your lineup? What’s with the ‘minor league roster’ left over from the guys who couldn’t shoot straight?” PHOTO: Rudi Reit Creative Commons
Here’s the full decision in Brathwaite v. Garland:
Petitioner Aldwin Junior Brathwaite petitions for review of an order of removability, entered by the Honorable Joy A. Merriman, U.S. Immigration Judge (“IJ”), on June 11, 2019, and approved by the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) on December 11, 2019. Because the BIA’s decision is premised on an unreasonable construction of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (“IIRIRA”), we GRANT the petition for review and REMAND the matter to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
PANEL: CALABRESI, RAGGI, AND CHIN, Circuit Judges.
OPINON BY: Judge Calabresi
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Man, even with all the ridiculous “built in tilt” favoring Executive interpretations in Chevron, the BIA still blew it! Normally, in their attempt not to burden their comfortable lives with difficult questions of law, the Article III’s will find that any minimally rational interpretation of an ambiguous provision is “good enough for Government work” under Chevron. But, the BIA couldn’t even clear that “low hurdle!” Simply amazing!
Particularly so when you think that one of the (bogus) justifications often given for “Chevrontask avoidance” by the Article IIIs is the “superior expertise” of the Executive adjudicators, clearly a mirage in the case of the BIA and EOIR! At least over the past four years, the primary “expertise” for being selected for an EOIR judgeship has been past government experience, preferably in prosecution, a willingness to check the “deny box,” and ability to crank out the required minimum number of final orders of removal without thinking too much, rocking the boat, or, heaven forbid, actually vindicating the rights of migrants over the wishes of “The Partners” at DHS Enforcement! What a total sham that Garland is now presiding over!
Two years of litigation to “get back to ground zero!” And, you wonder why Garland’s Immigration Courts continue to careen out of control and generate backlog faster than they do positive legal guidance and best practices?
At core, courts are about problem solving, and judges are supposed to be “expert practical problem solvers.” Try to unearth those essential qualities in the disgracefully flawed “judicial” hiring practices at EOIR since 2000!
I note that no “outside expert” has been appointed to the BIA since before the 2000 election. Those few who were there in 2000 were rapidly “purged” by Ashcroft, sending the strong message that “expertise and independent voting” will be “career limiting and threatening” at the BIA.
That was followed by thoroughly rotten “jurisprudence” from the BIA that actually provoked widespread outrage among the Article IIIs at the time. The outcry became so loud, that finally even the Bush II Administration had to “tone down” the anti-immigrant rhetoric and abusive treatement of migrants and their attorneys in Immigration Court that Ashcroft’s “purge” engendered and encouraged. Of course, in doing so, DOJ officials disingenuously blamed the Immigration Judges rather than the “perps” in their own ranks who had declared “open season” on migrants’ rights and human dignity.
Not surprisingly, bad, biased hiring practices, which have intentionally excluded and grossly undervalued the most promising expert problem solvers from outside government bureaucracy, have produced a dysfunctional morass at EOIR. The lack of that basic recognition, even from a recently retired Federal Appellate Judge who should know better, is destroying the foundations of our justice system! Enough already! We need, American Justice needs, progressive reforms at EOIR! NOW, not sometime off in the indefinite future!
Yup, there might be problems with an appellate board that almost always tries to skew things against individual applicants. Rushing to crank out those final orders of removal and pushing already overwhelmed IJ’s to “just pedal faster” might not be a very good “strategy.” And, the lack of professional training, competent judicial administration, expert guidance from the BIA, and unwillingness to implement best practices further deteriorates the Immigration Courts every single day.
While fundamental improvements in personnel and administration at EOIR are well within Garland’s reach, he seems relatively uninterested in taking the bold, courageous actions necessary to restore due process. So, litigating his ludicrously broken, unfair, and dysfunctional system to a standstill, while supporting legislation to get an independent court, appear to be progressive advocates’ only viable options at this point.
This issue is likely to end up in the Supremes. In the meantime, however, there should be lots of backlog-building remands in the Second Circuit. And, who knows whether the BIA will get it right this time around. Even after court remands, their record isn’t particularly encouraging.
The BIA probably will have to wait for OIL, their political handlers at DOJ, and DHS enforcement to “signal” what the “preferred result for litigating purposes” is before venturing forth on another precedent. Does this sound like “fair and impartial adjudication” under Matthews v. Eldridge? No way! So why is EOIR continuing to operate as a “Constitution free zone” under Garland?
It’s past time for Garland to pull the plug and give progressive experts a chance to rescue his dysfunctional court system and save many of the individuals caught up in this never-ending due process nightmare! When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?
Much to the shock, consternation, frustration, puzzlement, and horror of progressive advocates who helped him replace Billy Barr as AG, it’s been three continuous months of “Amateur Night @ EOIR” under Judge Garland! Predictably, many Article IIIs haven‘t been enthralled with this performance! How many cases will be remanded from the Article IIIs and how much more backlog will be unnecessarily generated before Garland wakes up and pays attention? PHOTO: Thomas Hawk Creative Commons Amateur Night
President Joe Biden has taken some steps toward reversing his predecessor’s legacy of broad, indiscriminate immigration enforcement, including a recent announcement that it will no longer detain immigrants at two locations under scrutiny for alleged abuses.
But Republicans are adamant that increased immigration enforcement be a prerequisite to any broader immigration reform.
“There’ll be no immigration reform until you get control of the border,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Roll Call last month.
There are now nearly 40 percent more people in immigration detention compared to when Biden first took office, and his administration is continuing to turn away most migrants arriving on the border under pandemic-related restrictions put in place by his predecessor, President Donald Trump, which have led to the expulsions of more than 350,000 people this year alone.
But research shows that the threat of detention and deportation in the US doesn’t dissuade migrants from making the journey to the southern border, especially if they are victims of violence and may be seeking to escape the “devil they know” in their home countries.
“Managing migration at the border, particularly the kind of migration we’re seeing now, from a strictly deterrence, enforcement lens is just not sustainable in the long run and is not having the impact that people think it should have,” Theresa Cardinal Brown, managing director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said. “That’s why we need to rethink our paradigm for how we talk about migration and everything that we do at the border.”
. . . .
Knowledge of US immigration detention, however, did have an unintended effect on survey takers in Ryo’s experiment — it made them more likely to think outcomes and legal procedures in the American immigration system are unfair. That is worrisome, given that perceptions of fairness are significant predictors of people’s willingness to obey the law and cooperate with legal authorities, Ryo said.
“We really ought to be concerned about the extent to which generating these kinds of perceptions of unfairness can backfire in terms of more people disregarding our laws and undertaking that dangerous journey in order to get to our border and try to cross it,” she added.
. . . .
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First, let me congratulate Nicole on her spectacularly high level reporting and mastery of the English language: Clear, accessible, well-organized, informative, persuasive.Compare Nicole’s prose with the vapid, often misleading nonsense and gibberish spouted by legislators, government officials, bureaucrats, and right wing White Nationalist shills of all types. Just yesterday, Trump and his pathetic “wannabe” Greg Abbott were down at the border spouting their unadulterated, fact-free, racist blather and restrictionist nonsense (when Trump wasn’t rambling on incoherently about the “Big Lie” or himself). I encourage everyone to read Nicole’s full article at the link!
“Enforcement only doesn’t work” has been one of the key “themes” of Courtside since “Day 1.” The answer has also been clear — due process, fundamental fairness, racial equity, practical scholarship leading to durable solutions.
The converse of “enforcement only doesn’t work” is also true: A more realistic, more generous legal immigration system that advances due process and equality while taking advantage of “market factors” that attract and drive migration would also lead to more efficient and effective enforcement. Many, perhaps the majority, of those we are now wasting time and money on cruel and ultimately futile attempts to detain, deter, and remove would actually be a huge benefit to our nation if they were allowed to migrate legally on either a permanent or temporary basis.
I’ve been saying for a long time now that convincing folks that our legal system is basically bogus — falsely promising a fairness and dignified treatment we aren’t delivering — merely serves to drive migrants to enter the “extralegal” or “black market” system that helps support our economy. The real “beneficiaries” of “mindless immigration enforcement” and a dysfunctional legal system are smugglers, cartels, and exploitative employers. Also, obviously, corrupt GOP politicos benefit from having a permanent, disenfranchised, traumatized, largely non-White “black market labor pool” to prop up their economy while serving as an easy target to “whip up” their racist base.
Bad policies, driven by ignorance, myths, bias, cowardice, and racism will continue to produce lousy results — for the migrants and for our nation. Smarter, more courageous, more intellectually honest legislators and public officials are necessary. Whether voters will be wise enough to elect them remains to be seen.
The Board of Immigration Appeals has issued a decision in Matter of S-L-H- & L-B-L-, 28 I&N Dec. 318 (BIA 2021).
(1) Immigration Judges may exercise their discretion to rescind an in absentia removal order and grant reopening where an alien has established through corroborating evidence that his or her late arrival at a removal hearing was due to “exceptional circumstances” under section 240(e)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1229a(e)(1) (2018), and, in doing so, should consider factors such as the extent of the alien’s tardiness, whether the reasons for the alien’s tardiness are appropriately exceptional, and any other relevant factors in the totality of the circumstances.
(2) Corroborating evidence may include, but is not limited to, affidavits, traffic and weather reports, medical records, verification of the alien’s arrival time at the courtroom, and other documentation verifying the cause of the late arrival; however, general statements—without corroborative evidence documenting the cause of the tardiness—are insufficient to establish exceptional circumstances that would warrant reopening removal proceedings. Matter of S-A-, 21 I&N Dec. 1050 (BIA 1997), reaffirmed and clarified.
PANEL: GREER, O’CONNOR, and GOODWIN, Appellate Immigration Judges.
OPINION: Judge Deborah K. Goodwin
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Interesting points:
1) This case “clarifies and reaffirms” Matter of S-A-, 21 I&N Dec. 1050 (BIA 1997) a “Schmidt Board” en banc precedent written by Judge Gerry Hurwitz. My Round Table colleague Judge Lory Rosenberg and I dissented. Here is my dissent:
DISSENTING OPINION: Paul W. Schmidt, Chairman
I respectfully dissent.
On appeal from the denial of his motion to reopen in absentia exclusion proceedings, the applicant has submitted an affidavit stating that the
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Interim Decision #3331
Interim Decision #3331
information furnished in support of his earlier motion to reopen on notice grounds was not authorized by him. I would not reject this contention and find the applicant, in effect, incredible by reason of inconsistent statements without giving him an opportunity for an evidentiary hearing on the truth of his contention that he did not authorize the inconsistent representations contained in his earlier motion. Cf. Arrieta v. INS, 117 F.3d 429 (9th Cir. 1997) (finding remand appropriate to give the respondent an opportunity to provide evidentiary support for statements made in an affidavit accompanying a motion to reopen).
In his first motion to reopen and on appeal, the applicant, who lives a distance of several hours from the Immigration Court, claims that he was 20-30 minutes late for his hearing because of traffic congestion. If this were in fact the case, the interests of justice and the statutory purpose of providing fair hearings to aliens before removing them from the United States would have been better served by the Immigration Judge exercising his available discretion to hear the case at another time during the day. See Romano-Morales v. INS, 25 F.3d 125 (2d Cir. 1994)(stating that rules regarding in absentia hearings should be carefully applied to avoid conflict with statutory or constitu- tional rights); Matter of W-F-, 21 I&N Dec. 503 (BIA 1996) (stating that notwithstanding rules governing in absentia hearings, an Immigration Judge retains authority to excuse presence, grant a continuance, or change venue). I am not necessarily convinced that every incidence of tardiness must be treated as an “absence” from the hearing.
I therefore dissent from the decision to dismiss the applicant’s appeal.
Perhaps, in disavowing a “per se” rule on traffic delays, referring to the “totality of the circumstances,” and setting forth some useful criteria to guide practitioners, the panel at least “inched” toward the position Lory and I articulated in our respective 1997 dissents.
2) The “prevailing attorney” in this case, Farhad B. Sethna, Esquire, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, was a “regular” before the Arlington Immigration Judges during the years we were responsible for the Cleveland, Ohio docket.
This WashPost headline and Post Supreme Court reporter Robert Barnes’s summary say it all!
Supreme Court rules against immigrants claiming safety fears after deportation and for pipeline builders
By Robert Barnes
June 29 at 5:22 PM ET
. . . .
In the immigration case, the court was considering the rights of a relatively small subset of immigrants: those who were deported once before but reentered the United States illegally because they say they faced threats at home.
At issue was a complex federal law that authorizes the government to detain immigrants and which section of it applies to these types of cases.
One piece of the law says, “the alien may receive a bond hearing before an immigration judge” and thus the chance to be free while proceedings continue, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote for the majority. In the other, the immigrant is considered “removed,” and indefinite detention is warranted.
Alito and his fellow conservative justices said it was the second that applied, and the detainees do not get a bond hearing. The court’s three liberals objected.
The case involved people who an immigration officer found had credible fears of danger or persecution in their home countries. For instance, Rodriguez Zometa said he was threatened with death by the 18th Street Gang when he was removed to his home country of El Salvador.
The question of whether the government could hold the immigrants without a hearing before an immigration judge had divided courts around the country. The case was argued before President Biden took office, and lawyers for the Trump administration told the court immigrants were not entitled to a hearing.
Alito said Congress had good reason to be more restrictive with those who came back into the country after being deported. “Aliens who reentered the country illegally after removal have demonstrated a willingness to violate the terms of a removal order, and they therefore may be less likely to comply with the reinstated order” that they leave, he said.
He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
The court’s liberals, Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, saw it differently and would have affirmed the victory the plaintiffs won at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond.
“Why would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that may last for many months or years?” Breyer wrote. “I can find no satisfactory answer to this question.”
Nice summary, Robert! You can read the rest of Barnes’s report at the link. Indeed, Justice Breyer’s cogent question quoted in the articleremains unanswered by the wooden legal gobbledygook in the majority decision, devoid of much understanding of how the dysfunctional Immigration Courts and the DHS “New American Gulag” actually operate and dismissive of what it actually means to be a refugee seeking to exercise legal rights in today’s world.
At issue: The right of non-criminal foreign nationals who have established a “reasonable fear” of persecution or torture if deported to apply for bond pending Immigration Court hearings on the merits of their cases. Getting a bond hearing before an Immigration Judge does not in any way guarantee release; just that the decision to detain or release on bond will be based on the individual facts and circumstances. Individuals released from detention have a much better chance of obtaining counsel and gathering the documentation necessary to win their cases. They are also much less likely to be “coerced” by DHS detention into surrendering viable claims and appeal rights.
Majority’s response: These “aliens” have neither rights nor humanity that any life-tenured GOP-appointed judge is bound to respect.
Alternative: There is a readily available alternative statutory interpretation, adopted by the 4th Circuit and the dissent, that would recognize the human and legal rights of vulnerable refugees seeking legal protection and give them hearings on continuing custody in substandard conditions (in some instances, conditions in the “DHS New American Gulag” fall well below those that would be imposed on convicted felons).
You can’t win ‘em all: The Round Table was one of many organizations filing an amicus brief on behalf of the refugees and in support of the position adopted by the 4th Circuit and the dissent. While we were unsuccessful on this one, at least we are on the “right side of history.”
Creative suggestion: Detainees should incorporate, perhaps as a pipeline company, or better yet a gun rights’ group, so that they would have legal rights and be treated as “persons” (e.g., “humans”) by the Supremes’ GOP majority.
Next steps:
Advocates should prevail on the Biden Administration to change the regulations to give this limited subclass of applicants for protection a chance to seek bond before an Immigration Judge;
Advocates should keep up the pressure on the Biden Administration and Garland to appoint better judges at EOIR: progressive practical experts, who know how to grant legal protection efficiently and fairly and who will establish appropriate legal precedents to help these cases move through the EOIR system on the merits in a timely and fundamentally fair manner consistent with due process. The length of time it takes “Withholding Only” cases to move through the Immigration Courts has lots to do with: unfair, coercive detention practices by DHS; poor judging and bad precedents at EOIR; incompetent “judicial administration” and politicized “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” @ EOIR by DOJ politicos and their EOIR “retainers.”
Long term solution:
Support and vote for progressive legislators who will revise the immigration laws to do away with the unnecessary and wasteful“New American Gulag;”
Vote progressive candidates for President and the Senate: political officials committed to putting better Federal Judges on the bench at all levels — “practical scholars” with real experience representing the most vulnerable in society and who will tirelessly enforce due process, equal protection, human rights, and fundamental fairness for all persons regardless of race, religion, or status; judges who understand and will seriously reflect on the “real life” human consequences of their decisions. Better judges for a better America!
Sloppy decision-making and institutional bias in favor of DHS Enforcement remain endemic problems at EOIR that Garland has failed to address. “Eyore” isn’t the only one suffering from this failure to bring progressive reforms to “America’s worst and deadliest courts!” “Eyore In Distress” Once A Symbol of Fairness, Due Process, & Best Practices, Now Gone “Belly Up”
“. [T]he government is right that we have no jurisdiction to re-weigh the evidence of hardship. But, a reweighing could only occur if there had been a weighing of that evidence in the first place. And, here, we conclude that there was no weighing of that evidence at all. We thus reject the government’s argument that the BIA, in overturning the immigration judge’s ruling granting Perez-Trujillo adjustment of status, did consider hardship as he contends that it was required to do under Matter of Arai.”
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Notice a theme here: No need to actually consider the evidence, just deny, particularly when that’s the result demanded by the “partners” over at DHS enforcement? What kind of “court” operates in this manner? Where is the “fair and impartial adjudication” required by Due Process and Matthews v. Eldridge?
Clearly, these are signs of “denial-oriented assembly line decision-making by the BIA.” And, how does Garland explain OIL’s “defense” of weighing and considering factors that NEVER OCCURRED — essentially fabricated? Sounds like intentionally misleading courts to me! THIS is our Department of “Justice” under Garland?
Bias, poor judging, a culture of denial, and political interference with docket management are endemic problems at Garland’s BIA! That’s a prime reason why under DOJ’s “maliciously incompetent” administration and weaponization EOIR has built a still out of control 1.3 million case plus backlog!
Easy cases become endless exercises, as EOIR and OIL waste the time of the Circuits trying to “paper over” shoddy and biased decision-making on the “deportation assembly line.”Cases that should have been favorably resolved years ago instead keep bouncing around the system on “Circuit remands.”
Some then become the victims of “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” by DOJ politicos and their EOIR toadies and never get resolved at all! All these problems are magnified by two-decades of grossly incompetent DOJ/EOIR “management” that has elevated political agendas and bureaucratic nonsense over implementing a functioning e-filing system like every other comparable “court” in America! Due Process and customer service continue to come last at Garland’s EOIR!
DON’T let Garland and Mayorkas claim that the “solution” is more improperly “expedited” special dockets and less due process. NO, NO, NO! The solution is better judges (now, not later), granting more deserving cases rather than “looking for reasons to deny,” better judicial training, positive precedents from a new expert BIA, and an end to bogus “quotas,” stupid and unethical “performance work plans,” and political interference with docket management by DOJ and EOIR HQ!
Without aggressive progressive interventions and a massive infusion of new progressive expert personnel into EOIR, the Immigration Courts will continue to flounder and fail under Garland. Then, in the finest DOJ tradition, looking for a way to cover himself, he and his team will attempt to shift the blame to their victims— hapless, abused respondents and their long-suffering lawyers! Don’t let them get away with it!
Garland’s failure to institute “no brainer” progressive reforms @ EOIR and to replace bad judges is life-threatening and an incredible drag on our entire legal system! Tell him you have had enough! Demand better! Let your voices be heard in protest every day until we get the long overdue, readily achievable, EOIR reforms progressives have worked for and were promised!
In The Atlantic, journalist Jonathan Karl gives us a short look at Trump attorney general William Barr’s last weeks in power according to William Barr himself, who was kind enough to grace Karl with a series of interviews out of the innate goodness of his heart. Oh, and because Barr is now seen by many as the most thoroughly partisan and corrupt attorney general in a generation, which is going to seriously cut down on future speaking fees if he can’t figure out how to massage the record back into something vaguely defensible.
The actual news out of it is Not Damn Much, but this is a good opportunity to revisit the First Rule Of News Consumption: Be aware of the source. From the nation’s top powerbrokers to man-on-the-street interviewees, anyone talking to a reporter about their own doings is going to tell that reporter the most flattering version of events they think they can get away with. Many of the most important details about what Trump and his core team did in their attempts to overturn a United States election remain murky because those most in the know, like ex-House Republican turned chief of staff Mark Meadows, are clamming up.
. . . .
Great, super. So again we have a situation in which everyone around Trump was pretty damn certain he had gone off the rails, jumped the trolley, sprung a brain-leak, and had become devoid of marbles but nobody in government, from Secret Service on down, was willing to toss him in a burlap sack, tie it shut, and declare that Mike Pence was taking charge because the sitting president had developed a serious case of bananapants.
. . . .
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You an read the full story at the link.
The key takeaway for progressives is that Barr is the guy that AG Merrick Garland HONORED by appointing 17 of his flawed selections to an Immigration Judiciary already reeling from a one-sided infusion of judges with questionable qualifications into a system weaponized against individual asylum seekers, other migrants, and their lawyers.
So far zero (0) progressive judges from the community of experts and advocates who helped show Barr the exit and elect Biden and Harris have been tapped for these “life or death” quasi-judicial positions. Rumor has it that’s about to change. But, that will hardly restore scholarship, due process, and balance to a disastrously “out of wack” deportation railroad!
Maria Ramos Pacheco reports for the Dallas Morning News:
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — While Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday the goal of her trip to El Paso was to understand the “root causes” of the rising influx of migrants from recent months, just across the border Honduran migrant Manuel Medina had a simple explanation for why thousands of people from other countries will continue to try to reach the United States: To stay alive while fleeing countries where their families are threatened by crime and violence.
“I did not leave my country and my wife because I wanted to. [Rising] crime forced me to leave everything; the only thing I want is for my family and me to be safe,” said Medina, 37, who left Honduras in May 2019 after receiving threats from gang members.
Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas; Sen. Dick Durbin, D- Ill; and El Paso Rep. Verónica Escobar.
Amid a chorus of criticism coming mainly from Republican politicians, Harris made her first trip to the U.S. Southern border flanked by the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro MayorkasSen.
For people like Medina, neither restrictive immigration policies nor dangerous journeys through several countries, border walls, or even statements from politicians deter them from seeking to rebuild their lives in the United States.
Medina has lived for two years in this city’s El Buen Samaritano shelter, managed by a religious organization, along with his 15-year-old son Nahúm Medina. Their asylum petition was initially rejected in 2019 and he stayed in Ciudad Juárez under the Migrants Protection Protocols, waiting for a second chance.
The MPP or “Remain in Mexico” program was created in 2019 by the Trump administration, which forced people seeking asylum to remain in Mexico. As of May, there were 71,002 active cases.
Restrictionism, racism, nativism, cruelty, and scofflaw behavior will only continue to make things worse. And, AG Merick Garland, staffing your “courts” with “Miller Lite” holdovers and Trump toadies won’t stop the downward spiral of American justice on your watch!
EOIR Withdraws Opposition to
NAIJ Motion to Reconsider,
Does Not Oppose Motion to Remand
Judges:
In a filing this morning, EOIR withdrew its opposition to our motion to reconsider before the FLRA and agreed to a remand to the Regional Director. Here’s their brief.
This is a major step forward in our fight against the previous administration’s effort to decertify NAIJ. NAIJ thanks EOIR and DOJ for taking this important step.
EOIR’s actions come after NAIJ filed with the FLRA earlier this week a Motion to Remand and for Stay. NAIJ’s motion was part of a coordinated effort by NAIJ and our parent union IFPTE to bring the importance of the decertification issue to the attention of the highest levels of this administration. It looks like we succeeded.
Although there are many reasons for optimism, this fight is not yet over. The decertificaton matter remains pending before the FLRA. As we are well aware, the FLRA is still composed of the same members who, over a vigorous dissent, reversed the decision of the FLRA Regional Director who had previously upheld our right to unionize. We are closely monitoring the situation with our litigation team to assure this favorable progress continues until our case is definitively resolved, once and for all.
Thank you for your unwaivering support of NAIJ.
We will keep everyone updated with any further developments.
The NAIJ Board
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As pointed out by the NAIJ Board, it’s not over till it’s over! But, definitely a big step in the right direction for the NAIJ, the Garland DOJ, and the Biden Administration!
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a retired member of the NAIJ!
Deep ThroatIs DOJ/EOIR “Management” staking out every one of these in the DELMARVA area to catch “DT-21?” Is that why they don’t have time to reform EOIR? — Creative CommonsThe EOIR Tower in Falls Church might appear shiny from the outside, but inside it’s still just about as opaque as the lives of those caught up in Garland’s Star Chambers!
1) The Richmond video “court” is opening soon to hear more cases in secret without public access.
2) Several IJs working from home are now hearing cases by VTC from their residences. But, there’s no provision for those hearings to be open to the public contrary to the regulations. More VTC just means more problems.
3) EOIR has hired 10 or 11 new IJs but hasn’t disclosed the names publicly. Can “Dandy Dan” Kowalski & other news-hounds smoke out the names again?
4) At least one inexcusable, major setback on long overdue progressive judicial leadership @ EOIR! Unfortunately, the AG decided not to remove Wetmore as Chairman and his probation period has passed.
So, are we stuck with a Miller/Barr/Trump toady “plant” in charge of a “court” that probably has more to do with racial and gender justice in America than any “judicial” (using the term lightly) body short of the Supremes and that “gets it wrong” — often dead wrong — in well-publicized bad opinions “outed” by the Article IIIs on a regular basis?No, doesn’t make sense!
Progressives, the NDPA, and anybody who cares about due process and equal justice in America should be raising hell with the Administration until we get the change we voted for!
“Passing probation” doesn’t guarantee anyone a particular SES position or a quasi-judicial position at EOIR. Just ask legions of past DOJ “Hallwalkers!”
Garland was sitting around the Ivory Tower while the NDPA was fighting in the trenches for human lives and the survival of Americans democracy. That’s a big reason why Garland, Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Administration have their jobs now! Don’t stand for an immigration bureaucracy and justice system controlled and populated by disciples and plants of “Gauleiter Miller,” “Billy the Bigot,” and “Gonzo Apocalypto.”
5) On the much brighter side, Courtside has confirmed from several sources that the long-extinguished flames of due process, fundamental fairness, best practices, humanity, compassion, and intellectual courage should soon be re-ignited in the opaque darkness and “rabbit warrens” of the 24th Floor of the Tower where the BIA hangs out.
Will the “wallsof bias and intentional exclusion of the best and brightest American justice has to offer from outside government” that has plagued the BIA and demeaned American Justice for the past two decades finally be cracked? Will that crack become a breach that eventually becomes a flood of scholarship, fairness, efficiency, respect, and teamwork that will transform a “Tower of Darkness” in to a “Beacon of Justice” that can be seen from coast to coast?
6) Stay tuned! And, keep demanding better, much much better, from Garland, Monaco, Gupta, Clarke, and the rest of the Biden immigration, civil rights, human bureaucracy at DOJ! They seem to think that “elections only have consequences” in immigration and human rights when the GOP wins.
Evidently, they view themselves as above the fray just treating EOIR like another piece of their dysfunctional DOJ bureaucracy. Nothing very proactive or bold! Just let the abuses be unearthed by others and dribble out a bit at a time.Then do a little damage control and “message massaging.”
That’s a prime reason why, despite representing the majority of Americans, and having access to better ideas, the Dems have had trouble governing, retaining power, and turning their agenda into action over the past half-century!It’s also a prime reason why humanity is suffering in our dysfunctional Immigration “Courts,” in a broken DHS that continues to run Gulags and has shamefully retaliated against NDPA members fighting for justice, and in the inexcusable human carnage at our borders fueled by the DOJ’s participation in corruption, intellectual dishonesty, and the illegal suspension of the rule of law!150 days in and still no functioning asylum system? Come on man!
Five years ago, after retiring, I tried to tell the Clinton folks that not appointing a progressive immigration/human rights expert to be Attorney General would be a huge mistake. Obviously, that became a “moot point” in November 2016.
Ironically, however, the Trump Administration got my message in a negative way. They turned the DOJ over to radical White Nationalist nativists determined to use the negative power of bureaucracy and immigration to batter down the foundations of Americans democracy and spread the gospel of racism, misogyny, and unbridled xenophobia. And,it worked! Big time!
I’m certainly not the only one who vainly tried to tell the Biden Administration NOT to repeat the same mistakes at Justice. Better candidates for AG, folks like the Castro brothers, Chairman Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Jamie Ruskin, and Dean Kevin Johnson were out there. Real, courageous, dedicated progressive leaders and due process mavens! Folks who would have shaken up EOIR, gotten rid of the deadwood and incompetence, cut the unnecessary backlog, instituted best practices, and reestablished a robust, functioning asylum system at the border by now! Folks with the proven backbone to stand up for justice, against all threats, internal and external! Folks who would take seriously their oaths “to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic!”
The slow and ineffectual pace of personnel and other achievable internal reforms at EOIR continues to be an insult to those who are the future of American democracy — if American democracy indeed has a future! That’s still up in the air!
We can see the effect of delay in making the necessary bold progressive immigration and human rights reforms in VP Harris’s foundering performance at the border. No rule of law, no program for fairly and efficiently adjudicating asylum, no open ports of entry, no coherent message on the realities of human migration, no order, kids in bad placements, Border Patrol agents “apprehending” folks who only want their prompt, fair asylum screening from Asylum Officers! What an (avoidable) mess!
The nativist opposition hasn’t folded their tents! Stephen Miller & co. are energized by Garland’s failure to heed the advice of and bring in the expertise of progressives at EOIR. He’s like “Voldemort” — every day Garland dawdles, Miller gets stronger.
His power grows every day that Garland dawdles and progressives find themselves still playing defense, rather than running the show under tone deaf “management” that owes its very existence to them and their support! After 8 years of “lockout” by Obama — yielding a quite predictable human rights and legal disaster — are the folks who revived democracy and kept the fires burning in Immigraton Court REALLY willing to put up with another four years of THIS? Are Dems REALLY THIS DUMB (not to mention ungrateful)? By Blanca Toth, OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Creative Commons
Keep the outrage and opposition to intransigence and failure to bring reform to EOIR coming! NDPRers, my time on the stage is winding down! It’s YOUR future and YOUR CHILDREN’S future on the line today!
Opaque procedures, regressive leadership, secret hearings, Miller cronies, bad precedents, lack of progressive jurisprudence, Article III embarrassments and travesties, mindlessly “expedited” dockets, Aimless Docket Reshuffling, idiotic due-process denying production quotas and “performance work plans,” contempt for advocates and experts, defense of the indefensible, and treating human lives and advocates as “fungible” at EOIR are NOT OK!
Keep the resistance building! Be outraged! Turn up the decibels until even Garland and the West Wing can’t ignore the uproar!
Jeff Sessions’ Cage by J.D. Crowe, Alabama Media Group/AL.com Republished under licenseBill Barr Consigliere Artist: Pat Bagley Salt Lake Tribune Reproduced under license
Judge Garland wonders whether there could be some “problems” with these guys and their corrupt agendas. Meanwhile, his DOJ continues to sink deeper into the muck every day! Hey, what’s the rush? It’s “only justice” and human lives at stake here! Garland seems to think that can’t compare with protecting important “Departmental prerogatives” to cover up past and perpetuate future injustices @ Justice! He’s wrong! Dead wrong in some cases!
Donald Trump never did much to hide his dangerous belief that the US justice department and the attorneys general who helmed it should serve as his own personal lawyers and follow his political orders, regardless of norms and the law.
Former senior DoJ officials say the former president aggressively prodded his attorneys general to go after his enemies, protect his friends and his interests, and these moves succeeded with alarming results until Trump’s last few months in office.
The martyr who may rise again: Christian right’s faith in Trump not shaken
But now with Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office, Merrick Garland as attorney general and Democrats controlling Congress, more and more revelations are emerging about just how far Trump’s justice department went rogue. New inquiries have been set up to investigate the scale of wrongdoing.
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Trump’s disdain for legal principles and the constitution revealed itself repeatedly – especially during Bill Barr’s tenure as attorney general, during most of 2019 and 2020. During Barr’s term in office, Trump ignored the tradition of justice as a separate branch of government, and flouted the principle of the rule of law, say former top justice lawyers and congressional Democrats.
In Barr, Trump appeared to find someone almost entirely aligned with the idea of doing his bidding. Barr sought to undermine the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, independent congressional oversight, and Trump critics in and out of government, while taking decisions that benefited close Trump allies.
But more political abuses have emerged, with revelations that – starting under attorney general Jeff Sessions in 2018 – subpoenas were issued in a classified leak inquiry to obtain communications records of top Democrats on the House intelligence committee. Targets were Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who were investigating Kremlin election meddling, and also several committee staffers and journalists.
Democrats in Congress, as well as Garland, have forcefully denounced these Trumpian tactics. Garland has asked the department’s inspector general to launch his own inquiry, and examine the subpoenas involving members of Congress and the media. Congressional committees are eyeing their own investigations into the department’s extraordinary behavior.
“There was one thing after another where DoJ acted inappropriately and violated the fundamental principle that law enforcement must be even-handed. The DoJ must always make clear that no person is above the law,” said Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration.
Ayer thinks there could be more revelations to come. “The latest disclosure of subpoenas issued almost three years ago shows we don’t yet know the full extent of the misconduct that was engaged in.”
. . . .
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Read the full article at the link. Once again, thanks to Don Ayer, a former colleague in both public and private practice, for speaking out!
Don Ayer American Lawyer Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Photo: www.ali.org
The record of anti-immigrant, White Nationalist bias at EOIR and the DOJ’s “Dred Scott” approach to justice for asylum applicants and other migrants is crystal clear! Thanks to the NDPA, courageous journalists, some “inside sources,” and the remarkable number of rebuffs from Federal Courts, the record on misfeasance and bias at EOIR, OIL, and the SG’s Office is clear.
For example, there is no “issue” that Sessions’s “child separation policy” violated the Constitution, that he and other Government officials like Rod Rosenstein and Kristen Nielsen lied about it ( ‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/politics/family-separation-border-immigration-jeff-sessions-rod-rosenstein.html?referringSource=articleShare), and that the DOJ attorneys defending this abomination at least failed to do “due diligence” and probably misrepresented to Federal Courts.
In many illegal child separation cases, as the Biden Administration is discovering, the damage is irreparable! Yet, only the the victims have suffered! The “perps” go about their daily business without accountability!
Every day, Garland’s lackadaisical approach to restoring “justice @ Justice” and his apparent indifference to individual human rights and fair judging continue to harm vulnerable asylum seekers and other individuals and disintegrate our legal system. It’s “not OK!”
Progressives and members of the NDPA must recognize, if they haven’t already, that they can’t count on Garland! They will have to continue to use litigation, legislation, oversight, FOIA, public opinion, and political pressure to get the immediate common sense progressive reforms and overdue personnel changes that Garland, Monaco, Gupta, and Clarke are avoiding. Garland might view “justice” as too abstract a concept to require his immediate attention. Many of us don’t agree!
